


Surface Deep

by signalbeam



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (TV), Persona 4
Genre: Community: badbadbathhouse, Costumes, Entertainment Industry, Gen, Post-Canon, Subtext, tv
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-21
Updated: 2011-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-18 12:12:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signalbeam/pseuds/signalbeam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rise returns to the idol business after Inaba and meets Minako Aino, who <strike>is fighting evil by the moonlight</strike> has a double life of her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surface Deep

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the badbadbathhouse prompt: _Anon would like a Sailor Moon/Persona 4 crossover._
> 
> But then I made it a PGSM/P4 crossover instead. And not a particularly cracky one, at that. Go figure!

There didn’t seem to be any such thing as a gentle slide into the idol world. She meant to transition nicely from one to another, but the two worlds don’t mesh very well. One day she’s settling into her apartment in the city and in the next she’s waking up in Inoue’s car after spending twenty hours straight in the office working out photoshoot schedules and variety show appearances. It’s hard to believe that a few days ago she was Rise teasing her friends and working at Marukyu on Sunday mornings. Now she’s Rise the image, the actor, the model; the idol. Again.

She’s doing some severe image control because she has a pretty clear idea of what she doesn’t want to be: Rise the object. That was what drove her into Inaba in the first place. She suspects that’s what drove so many idols into retirement to begin with. The money’s only okay, because a lot of it goes to the manager and the company and to the family; and the next thing you know you’re living alone in a six-mat apartment with a mouse problem and everyone thinks of you as that girl in the commercials or the magazines. There’s no sense of privacy. That’s one reason why everything gets planned out so strictly. One slip and everything explodes in a mess of tabloid headlines and scandals. And nothing’s more of a double-edged sword than a scandal.

She has statements to make about her absence and letters to write to her fans and needs to take a quick look at the website design. And could she write a blog post, because the big reveal’s in a few days. The first move is a “surprise” appearance at a popular early morning talk show. She’s going to show up towards the end of the half hour, talk about her health, the countryside, and coyly deny any rumors of returning to the industry, a lie so transparent that she might as well say in subtitles, “Yes, coming back soon, just hold on for a bit.” It’s five in the morning when she steps into the studio. She’s not due to appear until just after ten, but that’s the way the industry works.

There’s another idol waiting in the wings, a woman named Minako Aino. It’s not right to call her an _idol_ : she’s a legend. It’s rare for an idol to keep working after twenty. Most retire during high school or college and fade into the depths of normalcy. Minako Aino went into retirement at fourteen to beat a brain tumor, then came back and became world famous. Just being near Aino makes Rise a little nervous. Aino’s there with a scowling young woman wearing a cowboy hat who couldn’t look less pleased to be here, and the two of them are arguing (or flirting—it’s hard to tell) back and forth with one another until Aino makes eye contact with Rise and smiles. Rise smiles back. Aino heads over to Rise. Cowgirl, who reminds Rise of Naoto in a way, stays behind and scowls some more.

“Hello there,” says Aino. She’s more brittle than Rise expected, but more like obsidian than ice, with sharp, cutting edges. It’s hard to tell how much of that is because of the cancer and how much of it is because how the Aino standing before Rise is a flesh-and-blood person. There’s still an almost tangible air of power about Aino, though, and an air of nearly intoxicating intrigue. For all of her years in the spotlight and for all of her many appearances, hardly anyone knows about Minako Aino outside of Minako Aino the performer. There’s nothing on her family, little on her personal life, nearly nothing on her friends. “You’re Risette, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Rise says. She’s trying to figure out how to react: whether she should gush or bow or do both, but not at the same time. She settles for, “I’m a huuuuge fan of all your work, Aino-san! It’s an honor to be on the same show as you.”

“Oh?” Aino says. She looks a bit taken aback. Then she says, “Well, the pleasure is mine, Risette-san. Rumor has it that you want to come back to the business.”

The look Aino is giving her isn’t one that will let Rise get away with lying. “It depends on how things go,” Rise says.

Aino gives Rise a secretive smile. “I sympathize with your plight. I’ve been trying to rope a friend of mine back into the industry for a while. You’ve heard of Reiko Mars-san?”

“Um… not really,” Rise says. “Sorry.”

Aino looks disappointed at that. Then she shrugs. “You would’ve been eight or so when she made her first debut. Mars-san doesn’t like the spotlight, so she’s never had much publicity.”

Rise peeks over Aino’s shoulder to get a better look at Cowgirl. Mars is gnashing her teeth. Someone takes Mars by the arm and leads her away for hair and makeup.

“Anyway,” Aino says, “getting her to do anything is like splashing a horse in the face.”

“Sorry?” She doesn’t get it at all, but she’s pretty sure that it’s not because of her bad Japanese.

“It’s an English idiom,” Aino says. She looks a little flustered now, though, like she’s not used to making mistakes. She tosses her hair over her shoulder and then says, “Anyhow, Risette-san, I wish you the best of luck. I should go check up on Mars-san. The stylist said that they’d need her for a minute. Perhaps we could meet later?”

“Um, I’ll need to check my schedule,” Rise says. She’s not sure if she wants to meet with Aino—that’s not true. She wants to meet with Aino, but she’s afraid her head might burst first.

“I’ll check with your manager, Risette-san,” says Aino. She flashes a smile and says, “We’ll meet soon, I imagine.”

 

*

 

Rei doesn’t look happy to see Minako, but Minako’s long gotten used to Rei’s scowls. Minako takes them as signs of affection, in their own way.

“Who was she?” Rei demands as the stylist tweezes more of her eyebrows.

“Are you jealous?” Minako says.

Rei gives Minako a long-suffering stare, and then grunts when the stylist yanks off a bit of skin. It’s getting harder to get a rise out of Rei these days. Too bad, Minako thinks. Rei looks her best when she’s frustrated. Minako curls her toes inside her shoes (pointy high heels—she shouldn’t have, it hurts) and says, “She doesn’t seem to be a threat.”

“Then what is she?” Rei says.

Minako shrugs. “We’ll find out.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“It’s been years since the Dark Kingdom has been a problem,” Minako says. “Did you know that Nephrite-kun asked Ami-chan out?”

Rei grips the armrest more tightly. Her right eyebrow twitches, but doesn’t furrow. It’s her way of grudgingly granting her approval and voicing that she knows at the same time. It’s cute.

“And Motoki-kun and Mako-chan are actually marrying soon.”

“Hmph,” Rei mutters. The stylist working on her face has given way to a man with haircurlers and a hot iron. Alarm looks good on Rei. Minako wouldn’t say that she’s a _sadist_ , exactly, but she does like watching Rei squirm. “I want to be sure.”

“I know,” Minako says. “I’m going to ask Manager-san if he can arrange something.”

“Right now?”

“Of course.”

“But don’t you need to—” Rei nods over at the stylists, the mirrors, the bright lights, the hell that she’s been boxed in. The look she gives Minako is one of pure desperation. _Save me._ Or maybe _suffer alongside me_.

“Ah,” says Minako, flashing Rei one of her best smiles. Wasted on Rei, she knows, but it can’t hurt. “Pro idols like me always look television ready.” She throws her hair over her shoulder, winks, and goes off to track down Sugao. In a mirror, she sees Rei fume and frighten a passing stagehand.

 

*

 

The interview goes well. Rise forbids herself from googling herself, but Inoue’s all over her, gushing about how excited everyone is and how the company is putting one of her older albums back in circulation already.

“Also,” Inoue says, “Minako Aino-san’s requested you.”

No way. “Are you serious?” Rise says. “As in, the Minako Aino?”

“She says that she was quite taken with you,” Inoue says. He frowns. “You didn’t do something to offend her, did you?”

“No,” Rise says. “I don’t think so.”

There were rumors that went around when Mio Kuroki was on the scene; something about Aino crushing Kuroki’s career mercilessly over a small slight. But rumors were rumors. Rise knew better than to give them much mind.

“She says that it’s especially urgent and can’t wait,” Inoue says.

That sounds… worrying. Rise’s not so sure about going to visit Aino now. But there’s no denying that going to see Aino could be of great help for her career. And there’s no denying that there’s a rare something to Aino that makes Rise want to go, consequences be damned. Rise could pick up tips. Maybe.

“When can I go to meet her?” Rise says.

 

*

 

Due to a freak accident involving scheduling, credit card payments, and other such things (was it an accident at all, Rei wondered—well, it’s too late now) Rei is staying in the same hotel room as Minako. It’s terrible. They’re both fairly meticulous people separately, but together they end up driving each other not only up the wall, but through it. First comes the one-upmanship about food; then comes the shower rivalry; then come the competitions to see who can get away with doing as little cleaning as possible, and the end result is a room that Artemis declares unfit to live in.

They spent the better part of the hour arguing over who should pick up what off the floor. After they successfully managed to not kill each other, Minako drapes herself on a couch while Rei thinks about things sixteen-year-old girls liked. She knows that it wasn’t that long ago that she was sixteen herself, but so much happened to her: the death of her mother, growing up at the shrine, her odd powers—and then there was all that business with being Sailor Mars and watching the world end and then watching it come back together again. Even after everything was normal again, Rei found it impossible to go back to how things used to be. The soldier in her had awakened and is still awake now. She knows it’s true for Minako. The others—she doesn’t ask. And she doesn’t know.

“We can talk about music, Rei,” Minako says.

“I hate singing.”

“I never said we had to talk about _singing_.”

“I don’t like it,” Rei says, because she knows that Minako meant without a doubt singing. They have some chocolate in the room. Rei puts some on the coffee table. “Where is Artemis?”

“He’s researching this mysterious Risette.” Minako holds a dossier out and frowns at it. “Did you know that her real name is Rise Kujikawa?”

“I do now,” Rei says.

“What about her bust size?”

“Minako,” Rei says, half as a warning.

Minako smiles, small and enigmatic. Then she shrugs and says, “As far as Artemis knows, she’s a perfectly normal girl. He doesn’t think she’s evil.”

“Evil isn’t the word for it,” Rei says. “It’s more like…” She can’t place it. She bites her lip. “There is something… potentially dangerous about her.”

“Hmm.” That’s all Minako says. Then she pats the spot on the couch next to her.

Rei scowls; but there’s no point in being coy. She sits next to Minako.

“You’re going to have to get up soon,” Rei says, trying to sound exasperated. She ends up smiling up at the ceiling.

Minako plays with the belt loops on Rei’s shorts. “I don’t care,” she says. “It’s nice having time to spend with you.”

“Just nice?”

“Nice,” Minako says, then draws Rei closer and wraps her arm around Rei’s waist and presses her nose against Rei’s side. “Nice.”

Someone knocks on the door. Kujikawa, most likely. Minako pulls away and straightens out her clothes.

“How do I look?” Minako says. She winks, a little too flirtatiously. “Do you think she’ll like my feminine wiles?”

“Why would she?” Rei says.

Minako sighs. “You’re no fun,” she says, and gets the door.

 

*

 

“Wow, your room is so nice,” Rise says. She’s talking too much and can’t make herself stop. Aino’s pleasant enough to talk to, but Rise feels a little faint every time she realizes she’s talking to the Minako Aino—she imagines this must be how Yosuke feels around her—and Mars won’t stop glaring at her.

“My manager chose it for me,” says Aino. “Who is your manager? Minoru Inoue-san?”

“Uh-huh,” she says.

“Don’t know him,” Aino says to Mars. “Must be a newbie.”

“Hmm,” says Mars. Then she focuses on Rise. “Where are you from?”

“Yasoinaba,” Rise says. “It’s in the north. Forty minutes by train from Okina City.”

“I see,” says Aino. “Well, that’s a new story for a monster.”

“Elaborate,” Mars says. “Too elaborate. I doubt she’s one of them.”

Rise feels her mouth twitch into an awkward half-smile. They can’t possibly be talking about the Shadows. But she’s an actress for a reason. “Monsters?”

“Let's be frank with each other, Kujikawa-san,” Aino says, casually leaning against a wall, but it looks like a battle stance. Rise feels dread grinding inside her, like two stones crushing against each other. She doesn’t know what she did wrong, but whatever it is, she’s not going to go down without a fight. “If that is indeed your name. We know about you.”

“You do?” Rise says.

“What are you planning?” says Mars. “We know that you have a strange power inside you. Are you possessed? Are you a demon? What do you want with the Mystical Silver Crystal?”

“What?” Rise says. “No, no, it’s nothing like that—”

“Don’t lie,” Mars says, slamming her hand on the desk. The teacups rattle on the table. “You know what we’re talking about.”

“It isn’t a demon!” Rise says. “And I’m not possessed. It’s a part of me. Kanzeon.”

“The goddess of compassion?” Mars says. She sounds skeptical.

“Kind of,” Rise says. “It’s… complicated. But it’s not a demon. Even though it has some parts of me that are… shadowy.”

“Does it bother you?” Aino says. “Rei and I have encountered some people who have been… possessed, you could say.”

“What do you mean that you’ve encountered some people?” Mars mutters. “You wouldn’t even know if they were possessed if it weren’t for me.”

“Anyhow,” Aino says, giving Mars a little shove, “Rei here would be glad to help you. And if she can’t do anything, we know someone else in Tokyo who can help you get rid of that… shadowy part of you.”

“No,” Rise says. “Like I said, it’s a part of me. Shadow and all.” Mars gives Rise a blank look. She’s very pretty. That is not the right thing to think or say at the moment. Rise rubs her nose. She wishes she had Naoto’s talents for opening her mouth and explaining things. “It’s, um, like… Everyone has a part of them that they don’t want to face. And if you get thrown inside the TV, then the world there will… How did you sense Kanzeon to begin with?”

“Spiritual powers,” says Mars. “Are you sure it isn’t bothering you?”

“I’m sure,” Rise says.

Mars and Aino exchange glances. Aino shrugs. “If you believe that,” she says, sounding a little doubtful. “What you’re describing is outside our area of expertise, but if there’s anything we can do to help, then contact me.” She writes her number and e-mail address onto a piece of paper and hands it to Rise. Rise tucks it into her purse. It’s been a long time since she’s had to think of Kanzeon. Now she feels Kanzeon stirring in the back of her head, reaching out to the two women sitting in front of her. There’s something… off about them. Immediately she can tell that Mars’ element is fire and Aino’s is… light? Not light. It’s hard and sharp and ancient and... alien.

She sees them for a second as blinding pillars of light, one faintly orange and the other a stubborn, deep red. Then they’re humans again: a super-popular idol and her less popular friend.

“Who are you?” Rise says.

The two of them exchange another look. This one’s sadder and more complicated, as though they have years of experience with each other. Not just ‘since middle school’ but almost like the looks her grandmother used to give her grandfather before he died. Looks like they had known each other for fifty or sixty or hundreds of years.

“We’re soldiers in retirement,” Aino says.

“Something like that,” Mars says. “If you have that power, then you might have noticed something that happened in two thousand four. Maybe even around two thousand three.” Her fingers twitch around her teacup. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.”

“What happened?” Rise says.

“Who knows,” Aino says, but Rise has the sneaking feeling that Aino knows exactly what it is and just isn’t telling Rise. “Ah, it’s a strange story. There were a lot of demons and then the world ended and we all came back to life. Rei here’s the only one who runs around these days chasing demons.”

“I suppose,” Mars says.

“Ah, but that’s because it’s a natural gift of yours, isn’t it?”

“Why are you talking like that?”

“But now it’s done with,” Aino says. “I’m certainly glad to be done with those transformation scenes.”

“Transformation scenes?”

“Because we had to transform into our past selves,” Mars says. “By… what, you didn’t have to do anything like that?”

“No,” Rise says. “We… we went into the TV and then we’d summon our Personae by breaking cards. And then our Personae would manifest themselves like… outside of our bodies?”

“What, you didn’t turn into—”

Rise can’t help the little laugh that escapes her at Mars’ blatant surprise. “You did?”

“Well, we had our secret identities,” Aino says. “I couldn’t go around saying that I was Sailor Venus. It would have caused a scandal. We were assuming the identities of our past selves.”

“Our past selves fought in high heels?” Mars says.

“Of course we did,” Aino says, looking affronted that Mars even asked. “Our armor hasn’t changed at all in the past ten thousand years. If I had it my way, we wouldn’t have had to fight and flash all those demons whenever we cartwheeled.”

“You guys _cartwheeled_ in battle?” Rise says. “Wow. And I thought that Chie-senpai’s spinning was impractical.”

“We didn’t get a choice in the matter,” Mars says. She looked even less pleased than usual. “There wasn’t much of a choice in anything.”

“There was enough for things to change,” Aino says. It sounds very poignant. Rise imagines it’d be more so if she knew what they were talking about. “Rei here was Sailor Mars, back in the day.”

“No way,” Rise says. “But you’re so grumpy!” Mars scowls. "It's a compliment?"

“A lot of things are surprising, aren’t they?” Aino says. “I never would have thought that there were wizards in England, but—”

“Wizards?” Rise says.

“More things are true in the world than they are false,” Aino says. “That’s what I think.”

The way Aino spoke would make Aino … Venus, probably. It seems so obvious now, but what Rise really doesn’t understand is why they would need to become idols. It seems a little illogical, being idols and being Sailor Venus and Sailor Mars at the same time. The cancer story Aino tells is probably a cover for Aino being Sailor Venus. Rise feels a little betrayed. Why put up such an elaborate story when Aino could have just taken a leave of absence?

“How did no one ever take your picture?” Rise says.

“It was a different era,” Mars says, perhaps too seriously.

“But—”

“That’s enough,” Aino says, gently. “We’ve both gotten what we want out of each other, haven’t we?”

Haven’t we?

No, not yet. Rise wants to know more about what happened, the truth behind the sailor soldiers and Aino herself: who Aino is, why Aino took that leave of absence all those years ago, why Aino faked cancer—but Rise also knows when and how to pick her battles. She can’t beat the information out of Aino and Mars; she can’t challenge them in any meaningful way.

The only way, Rise realizes, is to win their friendship and their trust.

“Yes,” Rise says.

“Good,” Aino says. “Leave it behind, Rise-chan. It happened in another time. Embrace what’s yours in the present before it’s too late. It’s strange to imagine, but this life is pretty normal, compared to what we used to have.” She stands up. “Well, that aside, are you up to singing? Rei loves karaoke.”

Rise, seeing no reason to refuse, agrees. Feeling as though she understands her fellow idols a little better, she gets up and joins Aino on the stage.

 

*

 

“She said that they fought inside a TV,” Rei says doubtfully. She pokes the TV screen.

It does sound ridiculous. Minako can’t take it seriously, either. It’s easier to tease Rei with things that border on the fantastic than to tease Rei with things that are impossible.

Still, demons are demons. Zoicite could attack with radios. The greatest power in the known universe is, for all intents and purposes, a silver crystal smaller than a golf ball. Stranger things have happened.

“It was nice meeting her,” Minako says.

“It makes everything feel a little less lonely,” Rei agrees. “The world’s bigger than you expect it to be.”

“Although after a while you start to wonder why Earth is always in trouble.” Minako stretches out on the bed. Then she says, “I don’t want to go fighting anymore.”

“Oh?” Rei says. She sits up. A little bit of moonlight catches her lip. Minako, suddenly, wants to reach out and take it.

“Maybe I’m tired,” she says.

“I think we’ve fought enough,” Rei says. She sits next to Minako and then lowers herself down. “Anyway, we’ll be called if it’s important. Let Kujikawa take care of the… TV things.”

“I will,” Minako says. The full moon stares down at them.

“She was cute, wasn’t she?” Rei says.

“What? The stoic Reiko Mars-san actually noticed?”

“Shut up.”

 

*

 

Inoue’s left her eleven text messages. Rise gives him a call on the way back to her apartment after realizing nearly all of them are some variation of “are you alive did they skin you and barbeque you?”

“You were gone for so long,” Inoue says. “What did you talk about?”

“Um… personal things, I guess,” Rise says. “They were very interesting people.”

“Aino-san didn’t threaten you, did she?”

“Not at all,” Rise says. “She was a little serious… but sometimes she could be funny.” She fingers the taxi seat. Tokyo flashes by: all the people, all the buildings, all the lights. “It’s strange. She felt similar to me.”

“It’s good that she liked you,” Inoue says. “Aino-san can be very harsh on people she doesn’t like.”

“Yeah.”

“But she’s good at her job,” Inoue says. “She’s very good at it. It’s like she was born for it.”

“She says that doing this seems like a normal life to her,” Rise says, so suddenly that she didn’t even have the time to think about it before she’s said it. “After she…” was Sailor Venus? No. “… had the cancer,” she says, a little lamely.

“Anything that puts your life in danger will probably change the way you look at things,” Inoue says. “But don’t hold yourself to her standards. Extraordinary people see anything as ordinary.” There’s a little pause. “That goes for you, too. I have confidence that you’ll end up being excellent.”

“Thank you, Inoue-san,” Rise says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to call you so late at night.”

“Ah, I had called you a lot, when I think about it. Good night, Rise-san.”

“Good night,” she says.

Extraordinary? Rise doesn’t think of herself as being that special. But it’s comforting to hear that she’s even a little bit like Aino.

She doesn’t think that she’s much like Aino, though. There are entire sides of Aino that no one has ever known about: that orange light, that metal and bitterness, that exuberant young woman—Rise’s never seen any of it until today. It isn’t that Aino is two-faced, but rather that Aino’s good at casting deep shadows. Parts of her hiding away from the world, like the shadows obscuring the face of the moon.

It makes Rise uncertain. Aino doesn’t hide who she is, but parts of her are still hidden; Aino isn’t a truthful, honest person, but she isn’t a liar, either. It’s almost as though there are two of her, Aino the idol and Aino the person, but not quite. She’s mastered something that Rise hasn’t yet. Rise doesn’t want to split herself in two like she did before, because Rise and Risette might be the same person, but if she thinks of them as being different then it’s like they are different.

It’s age and experience, Rise thinks to herself. And she’ll know the tricks and the secrets of it one day. But how to do it, how to not get lost, how will she stay herself? The yawning, dark night stretches out its deep blue arms to her, its teeth defined by the jagged city skyline and the cavern of its mouth colored by the yellow and neon lights of the city. Who is she? Who were _they_? The truth, forever elusive, seems to jump into the night’s mouth.

Rise stares out into the dark, and thinks that she sees someone staring back. But there’s no point in being afraid of it. She smiles at her other self, and her other self, she thinks, is smiling back at her, too.


End file.
